


Just A Spark

by rufeepeach



Series: Burning Bright [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season 3 Finale, Swanfire - Freeform, Time Travel, episode rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:26:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5185250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rewrite of (a few select scenes of) the season 3 finale, in which Neal survives Zelena and accompanies Emma back into the past instead of Hook, where he meets his father in full Dark One mode. Prequel to 'Burning Bright'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Spark

**Author's Note:**

> This work serves as a prequel to my Season 5 rewrite 'Burning Bright', in which Hook died in season 4B while Neal is still alive. Hook is still alive at this point (hence my not tagging for 'major character death') but this is very much a Swanfire fic. So basically Hook/Captain Swan fans should steer clear!

“Well, there it is,” Neal sighs, gesturing reluctantly to the Dark Castle high on the hill. “The stolen family seat, in all its glory.”

“It’s a little more imposing than the pawn shop,” Emma mutters. “Your dad really lives there?”

“In this time and place?” Neal shrugs, “Yep. Dark One’s got to have his castle, otherwise how could everyone know to be afraid of him? Speaking of which, you’ve got to be careful in there, even more than is usual with him.”

“You’re not coming with?” Emma turns to him with a frown, bewildered. He stares at her like she’s lost her mind.

“Yeah that wouldn’t change the past,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Letting him know I’m alive, well, look like this, know you, and that all his plans work out. Definitley wouldn’t throw everything off.”

“Fine, fine,” she holds up her hands, “I’ll be careful.”

“Careful is right,” a high pitched snarl comes from behind them, and they whirl to see Rumpelstiltskin, scaled and covered in spiked leather, staring at them. “I’ll give you five seconds to run along now,” he snaps, grinning a nasty grin. “Everyone knows intruders are killed on sight.”

Neal steps forward, instinct kicking in seeing his oblivious father threatening Emma. Even more so because, scaled and snarling as he is, Rumpelstiltskin now looks the same as he had all those years ago, when he held his son over a portal and let go. Forgiveness had been easier in Storybrooke with the human skin and familiar brown eyes returned, his father at least appearing the man Baelfire had loved and trusted. This man, this murderous creature, is someone else entirely.

“Oops, time’s up!” Rumpelstiltskin trills, and holds out his hand, constricting Neal’s throat. Neal gasps and chokes, clutching his neck, and it is only the thought of the horrors that could occur if the future were changed, the many things that could be irreparably altered, that prevents him from gasping, “Papa, please…”

“No!” Emma cries, and runs forward, only to be thrown to the side by a wave of Rumpelstiltskin’s magic, crashing to the forest floor.

“I’d run now, dearie,” Rumpelstiltskin advises, “before you join the fate of your little friend here. I haven’t killed an intruder in so long, I’ll enjoy this.”

“We’re not intruders, and we’re not going to hurt you. You have to listen to me!” Emma begs, scrambling to her feet and running toward him again. “Please, you have to.”

“Why?” Rumpelstiltskin snaps, “I’ve no idea who you are, dearie, but you’ve only a second left to live unless you leave.”

“Because if you don’t, you’ll never see your son alive again,” Emma tells him, and Neal gasps and nods.

He can see the indecision on his father’s face, and for a moment, a horrible moment, he wonders if this version of Rumpelstiltskin is too evil, too dark, to care if he they are ever reunited. But then the flash of pain, the misery overtakes that cruel sneer, and he is dropped, choking to the floor, as Rumpelstiltskin turns to Emma.

“What do you know of my son?” he demands, and Emma swallows, casting an involuntary glance to Neal, collapsed on the floor. He takes his time getting up: no use attracting attention, after all. If they can somehow get through this without ever revealing his true identity, then they have a fighting chance. He knows his father: if he reveals who he truly is, Rumpelstiltskin might well try to keep him here forever, and that would break the universe or something equally bad.

“His name is Baelfire,” Emma says, “And you’re planning to enact a curse in hopes of reuniting with him.”

“Who told you that?” Rumpelstiltskin demands, “What are you? Some kind of witch?” Neal can see him putting on that impish façade again, covering the deep, terrified hurt that had just shone in his eyes. It gives him an obscene comfort, deep down inside: his father had remembered him, missed him, and the man Neal has forgiven in the present exists somewhere inside.

“No, I’m not a witch,” Emma says, and Neal clambers slowly to his feet, trying to keep as far out of his father’s notice as possible. He wonders if Emma will say they know one another in the future, or even indicate that he himself is aware of Rumpelstiltskin’s lost son in some capacity, but she’s cleverer than that. “I’m the one who breaks the curse so you can find him,” she continues, keeping the focus on her, and directing it as far from Neal as possible. “I’m the product of true love,” she finishes, and Neal sees the open, raw agony in his father’s eyes, the desperate hope and the crushing scepticism at war with one another.

“Well that’s just speculation,” he brushes her aside with one of those horrid little gestures, scepticism winning out. “Part of my plans, but I haven’t done it.”

“You will,” Emma assures him, “And you will succeed.”

Neal stays very, very still. His father’s keen eyes, however, are riveted on Emma as if she is the light at the end of a very, very long tunnel.

It’s heart breaking; terrifying. Neal resolves to mention this to his father, should this past version of him succeed in sending them home. Somehow, in all their fighting, all their slow steps toward resolution, and even in the time spent sharing one mind, Neal doesn’t think he ever fully understood how desperate his father had been for three hundred years to find him again.

“If that’s true,” Rumpelstiltskin says, slowly, “then that means…”

“We’re… ah… yeah,” Neal rubs the back of his head, hopes his American accent and age will mask his identity well enough, because he simply can’t not speak to his father: the pain in his opaque eyes is too much to bear. “We’re from the future.”

“But, ah, time travel hasn’t been done,  _yeah_ ,” Rumpelstiltskin snaps back, mimicking Neal’s hesitant tone, and Neal is perversely relieved by his mockery: it means he’s not even considered the possibility that he’s sneering at the very son he’s searching for.

“Yeah, well, someone’s cracked that code,” Emma interjects, eyebrows drawing at the memory of Zelena’s insane plot. “We need your help.”

“Help?” Rumpelstiltskin sneers, and giggles, “You need  _my_  help?” Neal had forgotten just how much he loathed his father’s old performance, the gestures and that terrible, grating voice. The voice that made a mockery of the deep, comforting tones that had been the bedrock of his childhood, read him stories and sung him to sleep. “Then answer me one question,” he snarls, leaning in to Emma, “Do I find my son?”

Neal swallows, hard, and hopes to God Emma won’t glance to him, won’t give him away.

“Answer me!” he shouts. Neal steps in before she can reply, before her inability to lie convincingly under pressure tips his father off.

“Yes,” he says. “You see him again.”

“Bae,” Rumpelstiltskin’s face lights up, the harsh lines softening, eyes warming, a smile forming on his lips. So much hope, so much joy, that Neal feels a bolt of guilt that he wasn’t more pleased to see his long-lost father when they were first reunited. But then, he’d been a lot angrier then, and a lot of progress has been made with both of them in the interim. “I find Bae,” he whispers, ecstatic, and then that hunger, that desperation draws back in, and he lurches toward Emma, “How?” Neal tenses, but before either of them can say a word, his father waves a hand to silence them, “No, no, don’t tell me,” he leans back, away from Emma, “If I succeeded, I don’t want anything in my head that might throw it off.”

Emma winces, guilt drawing her eyebrows together, “It… might already be thrown off?”

For a minute, Rumpelstiltskin stares at them both, and Neal is terrified he might have accidentally stumbled on the truth. Then, his thoughtful face clears, and exasperated realisation dawns. “You’ve changed things,” he sighs, infuriated. “What’ve you done?”

Emma glances to Neal for help, and Neal realises she’s ashamed of her screw-up, and in this it’s better he take the lead. And, after all, if he’s too obviously reticent that in itself will draw attention.

“We might have interrupted her parents’ first meeting,” he explains, and Rumpelstiltskin’s wide eyes dart between them both, as if he can’t believe the idiocy before his eyes.

He waves a hand, and they’re teleported into the foyer of the castle. Rumpelstiltskin strides ahead, opening the double doors with a wave of his hand, and Neal tries not to gawp at how pristine everything is, how grand his father’s home. A far cry from a starving spinner’s hovel, in a war-torn village in the Frontlands, and Neal feels that might be the point.

This is the kind of place his father would have wanted to raise him, he realises: the kind of place he was trying to buy with riches and gold, before the portal. What his father had felt his son deserved.

Emma, however, does not seem curious: she’s dead set on getting them home. “Thank you Mr Go-  _Rumpelstiltskin_ ,” she corrects herself, “for believing us. I know that time travel is hard to swallow.”

“On the other hand you live in a palace full of weird magical shit,” Neal murmurs, unable to stop marvelling at his father’s riches. “So time travel might not be such a leap.”

“And what do you know of magic?” Rumpelstiltskin turns to him at last, an eyebrow raised. “Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m an old friend of hers,” Neal nods awkwardly to Emma, trying to hide his shaking hand in a fist. “From outside your curse,” he adds, firmly. “Ordinary,” he stresses, “I had none of this… weird magic business until I moved to your curse town with her.”

“Then what do you know of me, or my boy for that matter?” Rumpelstiltskin frowns, stepping closer.

“I’ve… ah, met him, and you, since, ah, since you reunited. He’s… he’s a nice guy,” Neal lies. He says no more: his father stares him down, but not another word comes forward. There’s a long, silent moment,

“I think your little boyfriend’s scared of me,” Rumpelstiltskin titters, turning back to Emma. Neal heaves a silent sigh of relief.

“Ah, Rumpelstiltskin, you’re back!” A cheerful voice, light and female, comes from behind them, and Neal and Emma both turn to stare at Belle, who has entered the room the same way they’d just come. Neal gapes at her: she’s dressed exactly like he always vaguely imagined: dark hair pulled back and tucked over one shoulder, dressed in a light blue woven dress worn over a white blouse, and she smiles at his father like she’s overjoyed to see him. Even Neal, whose relationship with his father now is stronger than it has been since Rumpelstiltskin became the Dark One, has never looked at his father like that. Which is for the best, really, since Belle will end up all but married to him.

“Do you need anything?” Belle asks, and while Emma is gaping at her, pieces falling into place rapidly, Neal is surreptitiously watching his father. Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes are fixed on his made, and he looks pensive, as if she’s a puzzle he can’t work out. He can’t keep his eyes off her, in fact, and Neal wonders if either one of them has worked it out yet.

“Belle!” Emma smiles, before remembering that in this world she hasn’t even been born yet. Belle smiles in confusion.

“I’m sorry… do we know each other?”

“Oh, sorry…” Emma stumbles over her words and looks away, glancing to Neal for help. Neal just shakes his head with a small grin, enjoying Emma’s suffering. “No, um, Mister… Rumple… the Dark One,” she finally decides on, shooting Neal a glare over Belle’s head for his lack of help, “Um, he told me about you.”

“Did he?” Belle smirks at Rumpelstiltskin, and Neal hides his triumphant smile: his father might still be working out why he can’t stop staring at his maid, but Belle’s clearly already there.

“No!” Rumpelstiltskin denies, glaring at Emma for her slip-up, and Neal winces: his father clearly never changed, even while Belle was around. No wonder it took them so long to truly reunite, even after Rumpelstiltskin had found him in New York: he was as emotionally stunted as a pebble. He turns back to Belle with a glare so clearly false no one, not even that pebble, would believe it. “Go away!” he commands, thrusting his hands as if shooing his maid, “And, er, read a book or whatever it is you like to do! Come back and clean later.”

Belle’s smirk remains in full force, and Neal snickers and hopes no one can see him: some things never change, apparently.

“You could ask nicely?” Belle suggests, slightly teasingly, and Neal can’t help a wink in her direction: he is very fond of his stubborn little stepmother. Belle grins at him, not catching the joke but quick enough to know an ally when she sees one.

Rumpelstiltskin rounds on her, victorious in having found a smart comeback despite his love-addled brain, “I could also turn you into a toad!” he retorts, stabbing a finger in Belle’s direction.

She just raises an eyebrow, smirks at him one more time, and walks away.

Emma sighs, and mutters to herself, “It’s a miracle you two fell for each other.”

Neal shoots her a warning look: that’s a lot of personal information to give his father’s past self. She winces, realising what she’s just done, and Neal shrugs – not much to be done for it now.

“What?” Rumpelstiltskin sputters, and Neal shakes his head, rubbing one eye with two fingers: so his father has figured it out and is just in deep denial, because that’s always served him so well. “It’s just one nonsense after another, isn’t it?” he demands, “Time travel, and then random…  _ordinary_  men stumbling into my town,” he gestures to Neal, who shrugs and tries to look innocuous, “And now you’re telling me I fall for the help.”

“She’s a weirdo,” Neal shrugs, trying to steer them back to the task at hand, “Off her rocker, you really screwed up with the progeny there,” he nudges her in the ribs, and gets a glare in return. “Bit of a temper, too,” he adds, confidentially. “But can we get back to her parents, maybe? I’d like to be getting home.”

“Ah yes, to your, ah,  _ordinary_  little world,” Rumpelstiltskin sneers. “All this magic a little hard on a sensitive stomach?”

He giggles, and steps back, a showy gesture completing his joke. Neal scowls, but doesn’t reply: no reply is warranted, apparently.

“But yes,” Rumpelstiltskin continues, “Who are they? Your parents, I mean?”

“Snow White and Prince Charming,” Emma says, quickly, and Neal grins at her consistent inability to quite accept her parents’ true identities. It’s funny, considering they’re staring at the lizard-man who is his own father. Disney princesses seem downright normal compared to the Dark One. “His real name is Prince James,” Emma adds.

“King George’s son?” Rumpelstiltskin asks, and Emma waits for him to put the pieces together in his mind, “Whose wedding I’ve just arranged?”

“See, that’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Emma replies, “That marriage isn’t supposed to happen, because the ring he was supposed to give her gets stolen by Snow.”

Neal nods, as if his affirmation means anything, and watches his father work his clever mind around the details.  “It’s quite a tail you’re spinning,” he says at last.

“Here, let me show you,” Emma’s face lights up with inspiration, and she turns to Neal, holding out her hand, “Hey, give me the book, it’s all in there.”

Neal fumbles with the satchel, and finally drags out ‘Once Upon A Time’, handing it to Emma. He watches as she hurries forward and places it before his father.

“That book’s special,” he volunteers, “it’s got everyone’s story in it.”

“Yes, yes,” Rumpelstiltskin mutters, brushing him off with a flick of his fingers. Neal is both relieved his father seems not to notice him at all, and annoyed by the very same.

Emma opens the book with pride, and then her face falls slack with horror. “Wait, what?” she gasps, and starts rifling through the pages. Neal steps forward to take a look himself, and when he sees the blank pages, he slaps a hand to his forhead and looks at the celing.

“It’s all gone,” he groans, “everything after their meeting. Like _Back To The Future_.”

“Ripple effect,” Rumpelstiltskin pronounces, rolling the ‘r’ theatrically. He gazes down at the pages, steeping his fingers, “Once you change something in the past, everything from that point forward becomes uncertain. The future, as you can see,” he continues, gesturing to the book, “is a blank page.”

“We need to get Snow to steal that ring,” Emma realises, “so we can put their story back on track.”

“You’re in luck!” Rumpelstiltskin smiles, “There’s a ball tonight at King Midas’ castle. Prince James will be there, and so will his ring.”

“So we just need to get Snow there,” Emma breathes, excitedly, and Neal shakes his head.

“We have no idea where she is,” he points out, “And she’s probably up to her eyeballs in trust issues if she’s on the run from Regina, I doubt she’d be likely to just do as we say.”

“Well, I can help… with the location part, anyway,” Rumpelstiltskin stands, and leads them away from the table, over to a crystal ball on a table by the window. A wave of his hand reveals an image of Snow White herself, in a tavern with a man who looks exactly like anyone would expect an evil pirate to look.

“There she is! But… who’s that she’s with?” Emma asks, and Neal shrugs.

“He looks like a pirate?” he guesses. “Maybe she wants a ride on his ship?”

“I believe his name is Blackbeard,” Rumpelstiltskin informs them. “Rather a nasty sort… they have pirates, then, in this ordinary world of yours?” he asks Neal, and Neal grimaces.

“We have one,” he mutters, darkly, and Emma swats him in reproach. She’s not technically dating either one of them, although Hook’s been making advances since Neverland, but Neal can’t hide his antipathy for his once-stepfather turned rival. “I think you know him, actually,” he says, turning to his father, “Young guy, dark hair, leather coat, calls himself Captain Hook?”

“He survives the curse?” Rumpelstiltskin grimaces, “What a pity. Well, I suppose his murder is one joy I have to look forward to.”

“He’s changed, in the future,” Emma insists, more to Neal than to Rumpelstiltskin. “He’s turned over a new leaf.”

“From the looks of your friend here, that’s not all he’s turned over,” Rumpelstiltskin snickers, and Neal scowls again. Emma blushes and looks away, back at her mother in the crystal ball.

“What’s Snow doing?” Emma wonders, and Neal frowns.

“Wasn’t she trying to get out of Dodge when she stole your dad’s ring?” he asks, “’Cause Regina’s trying to kill her?”

“She’s trying to buy passage, then?” Emma guesses, noticing the stacks of coin on the table in front of Snow. “From this Blackbeard guy? Even without the money from Charming’s ring…”

“Without it, it seems she’s failing,” Rumpelstiltskin notes, gleefully. “That may well be your way in.”

“Will you help us, then?” Emma turns to him, urgently. He leans back, considering.

“I can work on opening your portal back to the future,” he tells her. “But getting your parents back together? You made that mess, dearie: only you know what you did, now go undo it.”

—

“We’re here!” Emma calls, marching into Rumpelstiltskin’s main hall. Neal follows her, Marian’s unconscious body cradled in his arms. They’ll reunite her with her family soon, and the thought of the three of them back together again feels like at least one good thing can come of this misadventure. Neal is tired, dirty, footsore, and missing the father that recognises him and his own son. He knows that Emma is, too: missing her parents, and missing Henry.

“So you are,” Rumpelstiltskin turns to greet them, “And I see you brought some luggage.”

“Long story,” Emma sighs, not wanting to dwell on the matter any further. Saving Marian may well be a blessing, but it is also a clear altering of the past, and Rumpelstiltskin is unlikely to approve if given all the details. “Anyway, how’s the portal coming? Can you open it?”

Rumpelstiltskin messes with a few little pots and trinkets, but Neal frowns: he knows all too well his father’s expressions, and knows when he’s stalling for time. A pit of foreboding gnaws at his stomach.

Rumpelstiltskin takes a deep breath, and then turns with an apologetic smile. “I cannot,” he says, simply, spreading his hands. He turns back to his work. Emma and Neal gape at him in horror.

This is his father at his worst, Neal thinks: selfish, manipulative, cruel, and uncaring. The sort of man that would send them on this journey, force them to fix the past so his plans can go on undisturbed, and then trap them here without thought or care for their wellbeing. The answer to that is simple: his son is all he cares about, and Neal is standing right there, anonymous. But to tell him, and then discover that he’s telling the truth, that there’s no way back… that could undo all the hard work they’ve already achieved.

“Well then… what’re you working on?” Emma stares, bewildered, at the magical paraphernalia spread out on the table. The knot in his stomach winds tighter: he can guess, he’s all but certain, and so whatever he says next doesn’t matter at all.

“It’s a memory spell,” he says, quietly. Rumpelstiltskin and Emma both stare at him. He meets his father’s gaze without fear. “You’re going to remove your memories, so your plan can’t be interrupted by the new information, aren’t you?

“Well, someone got clever quick,” Rumpelstiltskin snarls. “Not bad for an ordinary boy… unless you’re not so ordinary.”

Neal stares him down, teeth gritted, angrier than he’s been with his father since they returned from Neverland. This is the monster who threw him through the portal: this is the monster he ran from all those years. Not the penitent, flawed, forgiving father he’s coming to know in Storybrooke, but the selfish creature who ruins lives with a flick of his wrist.

“Who are you?” Rumpelstiltskin snarls. Neal doesn’t reply.

“What about the wand?” Emma asks, desperately, although neither man looks at her. “You said this could help us.”

Rumpelstiltskin tears his gaze from Neal and looks back at Emma, “Yes, well you see, it seems that only those who used the portal can reopen it,” he explains. “So unless you can wield magic, I’m afraid you’re going nowhere,” he gloats, and throws the wand to Emma, who catches it with numb hands. “Can you?”

Neal remembers in a flash Zelena’s spell, the well, the CPR that had saved his life from his father’s own compulsive spell, but had stolen her magic with it. She’d cursed both of them, him and Hook, hedging her bets: her gamble had paid off. Emma is powerless: they’re stuck.

“I thought not,” he smirks. Neal clenches his fists in Marian’s dress, and tries not to want to throttle his own oblivious father.

“So you’re just going to trap us here, forever?” he demands. “That’s always your answer, isn’t it? Lock me up, away from everything.”

“Lock you…” Rumpelstiltskin frowns, staring at him, and all at once Neal sees him recognise his eyes, his nose: the hair he inherited from his father’s side and the broad build from his mother’s. Rumpelstiltskin’s whole face falls slack, his eyes suddenly so open and vulnerable, so hopeful and yet hopeless, so terrified, that Neal can hardly move. “…Bae?”

“Took you long enough,” Neal mutters, shifting Marian in his arms. Rumpelstiltskin gapes at him, and then steps closer, gently, tentatively, ignoring Emma entirely who shifts out of his way.

“Bae,” he whispers, his voice strangled as he stares at his son with brand new eyes. “I found you?”

“Yes,” Neal says. “And we’ve forgiven one another, now. We’re happy in the future, papa. We’re safe.”

He doesn’t mention the imprisonment, Zelena, his near-death at his father’s own hands under the dagger’s control. He doesn’t mention any of the trials ahead, because that’s not what needs saying right now: right now, Rumpelstiltskin needs to know there’s a future worth repairing.

He places Marian gently down on the table, and he and his father collide in a bone-breaking hug, the reunion they’d have had if Rumpelstiltskin hadn’t been so aggressive, and Neal so very, very angry. “Bae,” Rumpelstiltskin whispers with heartbroken wonder, “Oh, my boy, my boy.”

“You found me, papa,” Bae tells him, “and I have my own son now,” he adds, as they finally pull apart, although Rumpelstiltskin keeps one hand on his forearm and the other on the side of his face, as if unable to believe this is real.

“I have a grandson?” Rumpelstiltskin frowns, “You married in this other world?”

“Ah, no,” Emma interjects. “The kid is… mine too, from when we were together, a long time ago. And we need to get home to him. You understand that, right? We have to get home to our son.”

“Of course, of course,” Rumpelstiltskin nods, “You have to go back, you have to… but without magic, I still can’t help either of you.”

“Then… what?” Emma asks. “What now?”

“I have a vault…” he’s thinking, frantically, pacing back and forth. “It’s full of dark, unstable magic. Something down there might help… but I doubt it’d reveal itself to me.”

“What about me?” Emma asks. “I’m the Saviour, I used to have magic… maybe something down there will help me.”

Rumpelstiltskin nods, “Yes, yes,” he says, “I’ll send you down there now. Summon me if you find something, otherwise,” he frowns, “I’ll start work on a general dispelling potion,” he nods, absently, “whatever removed your magic, maybe that’ll bring it back.”

“Thank you, papa,” Neal smiles, and hugs his father one more time, having missed him more in the past few days than he thought possible.

“Bae-“ Rumple starts, “I… in this future, where we’re happy,” he says, “do you… do you forgive me, for all the terrible things I did to you?”

“Do you promise to drink the memory potion?” Neal checks, and Rumpelstiltskin nods as if it’s a ridiculous question.

“Knowing all of this will ruin the future, and it sounds as if I should leave it as is,” he smiles, and Neal nods. “I will drink the moment you’re safe.”

“Then… yes, I have forgiven you,” Neal tells him, his face breaking into a broad grin, “Eventually. Don’t expect it to be easy.”

“It’ll be easier with you where you belong,” Rumpelstiltskin nods, “Now, off to the vault with you!”

Neal gathers Marian back into his arms, and braces himself. They vanish in a cloud of maroon smoke, and reappear in what has to be the vault: a dark, windowless room at the bottom of a deep, deep pit, filled with stranger objects even than the great hall.

“Now what?” Emma asks, waving her hands. They’re back in their old clothes at least, and Neal sighs with relief: jeans and jumpers beat breaches and waistcoats any day. Neal places Marian carefully on a low divan in the middle of the room, and scratches his head.

“We try to find anything that seems helpful,” Neal shrugs. “Or hope papa is as good a wizard as he claims.”

“Neal…” Emma starts, as Neal starts rummaging through cupboards. He comes out with a heavy golden urn, and Emma shudders looking at it. “Put that down,” she orders. “That feels… not helpful.”

“Okay,” Neal nods, and sets it on a low table. “What do we do, then?”

“There isn’t a way out,” Emma says, hopelessly. “I don’t have magic anymore, and no potion can fix that. it’s just… gone.”

“So what, seeing Henry again, your parents, all of that is for nothing?” Neal demands, her helplessness more unsettling than anything. “What happened to ‘the only one who saves me is me’?”

“I’m not trying to give up!” Emma cries, “I just know I don’t have any magic anymore. That’s all.”

“You’re also planning to skip town with our kid and send me a postcard every now and then,” Neal points out, finally naming the thorn in his side that’s been nagging for weeks. “Which’d be easier without your magic reminding you of where you really belong. Zelena’s dead, Emma, her magic’s dead too. Her spells are undone. You have your magic back. But you don’t want it!”

“You think I don’t  _know_  I belong in Storybrooke?” Emma demands. “Come the hell on, Neal! You of all people know that’s bullshit.”

“Why me?” he asks. “I’m not the one who’s planning to run away because life is hard.”

“Oh no?” Emma raises her eyebrows. “You knew the curse was broken a year ago and never came for me. You were going to marry someone else! And what about your dad, Neal? All that stuff you said to me when we first met, about how you missed your home? Your home was with me, and Henry, and your father, and you chose to ignore that. Can you even see how much he loves you?”

“What about you?” Neal demands, “You and your parents? You found them, at last, and now what? You’re vanishing off into the world, where you know they can’t follow, and you’ll call them at Christmas?”

“No!” Emma shouts, “No, I’m not going to New York anymore, don’t you understand? I’m not running anymore! It’s how I always survived, but you know what? I’m not eighteen anymore and neither are you, and we both have to stop running from what we’re afraid of. You already know that. You’ve stopped running from your dad: I saw it just then. I have to do the same.”

Neal stares at her, and for a moment there’s dead silence. Then, he swallows, and tries to form words that won’t sound pressuring, or expectant, or anything but simply curious. “And this change of heart was caused by…?”

“Seeing my…” Emma swallows, the fight draining from her, and he’s alarmed to see tears forming in her eyes. “My mom  _died_ , Neal,” she reminds him. “I watched her die, and then… god, you saw how relived I was that she’d made it. That she was safe. I hugged her, and you know what I saw in her eyes?” Neal shakes his head, and tears roll down Emma’s cheeks. “Nothing,” she breathes. “She didn’t know who I was… I had saved her, and lost her too.” She’s sobbing now, her words breaking as she tries to hold her voice steady. She takes a deep breath, and tries to regain her composure. “And that’s what I’ve been doing to her since I met her. It has to stop. When Henry brought me to Storybrooke, he told me I was the Saviour. I didn’t see what he was really doing. He wasn’t bringing me back to break a curse: he was bringing me home.” She smiles, a little wistfully, and looks him in the eyes, “You were right.”

“About what?”

“You don’t have a home, until you just… miss it.”

Neal remembers back to that night, what he’d meant: he hadn’t been thinking of the shack, the village, the trees and the grass. He’d been thinking of his father. His father who’s fumbling with magic upstairs, trying to help them; his father who’s waiting in Storybrooke, likely believing his son lost all over again.

“And being with my parents the last few days, but not really being with them? I have never missed them more,” Emma finishes, and Neal nods, knowing the feeling.

“Seeing my dad… I couldn’t bear it with him not knowing me. I mean, he can be a bastard, and this version of him’s done terrible things, but you’re right: I miss him. And Henry. And I miss the him that’s changed for me and for Belle.”

“We have to get home,” Emma breathes, almost a sob, “to Storybrooke. To our family.”

Neal hears a soft sound, like distant wind chimes, and he looks down to see the wand in Emma’s hand glowing white, “Hey!” he cries, shocked and ecstatic, “Emma, look! You’ve got your magic back!”

Emma raises the wand, stunned, “I guess so,” she marvels, and walks around him to an open area, “Let’s go home.”

“Wait,” Neal raises a hand. “Papa? Rumpelstiltskin?”

Rumpelstiltskin appears out of nowhere, “What is it, Bae?”

“She’s magic again!” Neal grins. “There’s no place like home!”

Emma shudders, “Okay that movie? Totally ruined for me.”

Neal remembers Zelena in a flash and shudders, “Yeah, fair point. Anyway, we can go, we’re going back to the future.”

“You need to stop,” Emma groans, rasiing the wand to summon the portal. “Or I’ll leave without you.”

“I certainly wouldn’t mind,” Rumpelstiltskin mutters. Neal grins.

“We’ll see each other soon enough, papa,” he promises. “It’ll be worth the wait.”

“I know it will, son,” he nods. “I know it will.” They hug one more time, and Rumpelstiltskin lets go quickly, although he doesn’t let go of his son’s hand. “Now, off with you. Oh, and ah,” he reaches around, and waves a hand, using magic to place Marian back in Neal’s arms, although he’s still clinging to his son’s forearm. “Don’t forget the luggage.”

The portal opens, and a wind whips around them, bathing them all in golden light. Emma takes Marian from Neal, and jumps through, but Rumpelstiltskin won’t let go of Neal’s arm.

“Bae,” he murmurs, and Bae looks at him, looks at his worn face, his tortured eyes, the utter terror on his face. The last time they were here, Bae thinks, his father let go and lost him for three hundred years. This time, he needs to hear that it’s okay: he needs permission.

“It’s okay, papa,” he promises. “We’ll be together again, I promise. Not long now. This isn’t goodbye; I’ll see you soon. You can let go.”

Rumpelstiltskin nods, and pries his own fingers from Bae’s arm, allowing his son, with one last grin, to jump through the portal. The last sight he has is of Rumpelstiltskin knocking back the memory potion, and his final words float through the portal back to Bae.

“What the hell am I doing in here?”


End file.
